iPhone + T-Mobile = Yum

My Rebel Simcard arrived yesterday, while in was in Clearwater. I came home, took a big nap and then played with it.

Got the data and voice working on my iPhone. Carrier is T-Mobile (USA).

Called T-Mobile Customer Care to downgrade my $25.00 unlimited data + 400 text messages plan to their $10.00 100MB data plan. T-Mobile’s “Nick” (male) mentioned that I’d lose those text messages (I’d forgotten) and offered their 50MB + 200 text messages plan for $10.00. Yeah! I had him set it up this way. Cool guy, very helpful. He reminded me why we’ve stuck with T-Mobile all these years. Nick also told me — I asked — that there’s no terms of service problem with tethering. Before I asked, he was telling a story about how he was setting it up himself recently.

Now I have to decide if I want to keep the unlimited minutes plan. Seems to me that any lesser plan won’t save me significant money, unless I go down to prepaid. Ick. Then I won’t have a data plan and won’t be able to use the iphone tethered as my backup internet option, which is a big part of my cost justification for the iphone. So prepaid is out.

And if I ever need to use the iPhone as a backup internet source, I can call T-Mobile and temporarily turn on the unlimited internet plan. Nick mentioned this on his own but I was thinking of it myself.

So now the only questions that remain are:

- Should I wait for the next-gen iPhone (if they release one in June, alongside the iPhone OS 3.0 release)? Screw it. I already bought this one. It’s very good. Big improvement over the iPod touch in some ways. If I get sick of it, I can sell it.
- Should I switch the two-line T-Mobile unlimited minutes plans to two unlimited minutes plans? It’ll cost about $10 more total per month. But if either of us don’t want the unlimited minutes in the future, the other person won’t have to lose theirs. Thinking about this, I don’t see myself dropping this since I’m going to want iPhone data forever. I’m pretty confident of that. So let’s just keep them together in one unlimited plan and save the $10/month.

Goodbye, Grand Central. Hello, Google Voice.

I upgraded my Grand Central account to a Google Voice account today.

Now I see the likely reason they didn’t add support for new, arbitrary caller groups in Grand Central: It would have been a dead-end to enhance Grand Central.

Bugs so far:

1. One hangup I’m not going to bother reporting.
2. When adding a contact to a group, the phones that caller will ring when they call don’t match the defaults of the Group.

iPhone/AT&T: No service

I was clicking on Griffin Tunebuds on amazon.com on my iPhone at 3:44pm, just now, and phone said No Service. So that’s the moment at which it sent out. Interesting.

Steelcase Leap Chair Delivered

The nice FedEx lady delivered my used Steelcase Leap v1 black/black cloth chair today. The truck was in the driveway when I arrived home with my new iPhone.

So far, so good. The butt of the chair is definitely not as hard as that of the v2 model I saw at Sam Flax in Orlando recently, which is a relief.

Whither iPhone?

T-Mobile is offering a big deal. I called yesterday to cancel my wife’s BlackBerry data plan (unreliable, but we suspect the phone is the problem) and they told me about two deals:

1. Two-line unlimited minutes Family Plan for $89.98 per month. Whoah. That’s $10 less than a single line Unlimited Family Plan and $20 more than a 400-minute two-line MyFaves family plan ($69.99); the same as a 1000-minute MyFaves Family Plan and $30 more than a 700-minutes (non-MyFaves) two-line Family Plan. (All of those comparison plans have unlimited Nights+Weekends.)
2. Transfer a line of service from another carrier (not prepaid) and get $135 credit to your T-Mobile account in 15 days.

So this got me thinking about an iPhone again.

After a lot of calls to T-Mobile and one or two to AT&T, I decide to get a 3G iPhone 16GB at Wal-Mart and transfer it to T-Mobile and upgrade to the unlimited minutes Family Plan. We’ll be paying a lot more than we pay now monthly but I can use the phone for business. It’s unlimited.

I bought the iPhone today, called T-Mobile, transferred it, then called AT&T. The nice AT&T lady, Deborah, told me if it doesn’t work out I have 30 days to come back to AT&T with no hard feelings and no fees. Wow!

I now need to get my iPhone working on T-Mobile. I only expect to be able to get EDGE working, not 3G, but I think that’ll be okay for me.

Also, T-Mobile has a free overnight shipping deal this week so I’ll have my Nokia 6263 tomorrow. (I had to pick a phone anyway. Two year commitment with this deal so why not get the free phone?) My wife picked out the phone. She can use it when she’s bored of her BlackBerry.

ForkLift – Best Damned OS X FTP Client

Last night the Cyberduck FTP client gave me trouble for the last time. It frequently asks me to overwrite — and thus re-upload — files. And most of my FTP uploads are of large files (hundreds of megabytes.) I don’t know if the overwrite prompts are because the connection disappears momentarily or what. But they are annoying.

So today I decided to get another FTP client.

I started with this review to get a beginning list of contenders.

To cut to the chase, there was only one FTP client besides Cyberduck I really liked using: ForkLift. I bought it today. Once I’d seen the other clients and ensured SCP/SFTP was working for me with ForkLift, I didn’t hesitate to purchase it.

Here are my notes on the FTP clients I considered:
Forklift (on sale via MacUpdate Promo for $29.95. cf. $44.95)
http://binarynights.com/
Tried it today. Instantly loved it. Just loved it. SCP worked (SFTP). I was instantly hooked.
I like its interface more than Cyberduck, though I definitely appreciate Cyberduck’s price.
Cyberduck
http://cyberduck.ch/
Looks fine to me. But in actual use, sucks for me due to one big problem. Constant problems uploading large files to my client’s FTP site. Hassle. Might be a resume (interruption recovery) problem.

Would I go back to Cyberduck (free) if I didn’t have the upload problem? No, I wouldn’t. Because to me the $30 I paid for ForkLift is totally worth it to use the tool that I know is the most comfortable for me. But would I recommend Cyberduck to someone that wasn’t totally in love with ForkLift? Absolutely! Cyberduck is a terrific tool and it’s definitely my second choice among the OS X FTP clients I’ve tried.
Transmit
http://www.panic.com/transmit/
Tried it. Interface sucks. Windows are tiny and borders are damned thick. Not natural. By way of comparison, ForkLift was just fab from the get-go.
Interarchy
http://nolobe.com/interarchy/
Tried it today, 17 March 2009. I didn’t like using it. Not comfortable at all. I’ll pass.
Yummy
http://www.yummysoftware.com/
I just don’t like the look of it from the Flash screen shot.
Tried it. Didn’t like the interface. Thick borders, though not as thick as Transmit’s borders. Causes a mental disconnect for me.
Fetch
http://fetchsoftworks.com/
Looks ugly to me.
Not even going to try it.
Filezilla
http://filezilla-project.org/download.php
Not pleasant to use. To Windowsy. I use it in Windows on machines I don’t have Directory Opus on and it’s a worthy tool with a great price.

New Office Chair

My six-month-old Office chair is hurting me. It’s a piece of junk, low-end high-back chair from OfficeMax. Junker I got for probably fifty bucks on sale.

The butt cushion has bottomed out, leaving two leg imprints on the chair and causing pain when I stand up after sitting a while. Damn.

Talked to my wife and she urged me to not skimp on the next chair.

After a lot of research and sitting, I bought a Steelcase Leap v1 black fabric, black base chair from a guy on eBay that ships them out of New York. Used but reportedly in “MINT Like New Condition.” Mint? Okay, here’s my $399 and nothing extra for shipping. If the chair works a long time without trouble and is clean, it’s a deal.

I wanted the v1, not the latest v2. I sat on a v2 at Sam Flax (store) in Orlando yesterday and didn’t love the seat butt part angle. The v1 lets you control that angle but the v2 doesn’t. Suck. And I’ve read the v1 is heavier and with better metal. I’ve also read the v1’s armrests are not as adjustable. The v2’s adjustable armrests — they move on two axes! — are simply awesome. I hope the v1’s wont’ be a letdown for me. But I definitely want a v1, not a v2.

The Leap’s butt pad is indeed hard, as I’d been led to believe by some Amazon.com reviews. But if I can pivot it (v1-only) to the ideal position for me, maybe that’ll be okay. And if not, I’ll get thin gel or foam pad to put on it. Or get it reupholstered if I must. Something very cushy. I like thick but fairly firm cushioning.

Steelcase.com says their warranty (lifetime) is nontransferable. Boo!

New Office Chair

My six-month-old Office chair is hurting me. It’s a piece of junk, low-end high-back chair from OfficeMax. Junker I got for probably fifty bucks on sale.

The butt cushion has bottomed out, leaving two leg imprints on the chair and causing pain when I stand up after sitting a while. Damn.

Talked to my wife and she urged me to not skimp on the next chair.

After a lot of research and sitting, I bought a Steelcase Leap v1 black fabric, black base chair from a guy on eBay that ships them out of New York. Used but reportedly in “MINT Like New Condition.” Mint? Okay, here’s my $399 and nothing extra for shipping. If the chair works a long time without trouble and is clean, it’s a deal.

I wanted the v1, not the latest v2. I sat on a v2 at Sam Flax (store) in Orlando yesterday and didn’t love the seat butt part angle. The v1 lets you control that angle but the v2 doesn’t. Suck. And I’ve read the v1 is heavier and with better metal. I’ve also read the v1’s armrests are not as adjustable. The v2’s adjustable armrests — they move on two axes! — are simply awesome. I hope the v1’s wont’ be a letdown for me. But I definitely want a v1, not a v2.

The Leap’s butt pad is indeed hard, as I’d been led to believe by some Amazon.com reviews. But if I can pivot it (v1-only) to the ideal position for me, maybe that’ll be okay. And if not, I’ll get thin gel or foam pad to put on it. Or get it reupholstered if I must. Something very cushy. I like thick but fairly firm cushioning.

Steelcase.com says their warranty (lifetime) is nontransferable. Boo!

Kindle Questions

Watching a Jeff Bezos interview by Charlie Rose about the Kindle (version 1, not 2) this week, I had some Kindle questions.

1. What sites can I browse from it? (for free) Anything other than Wikipedia?
2. Can I email from it? They mentioned emailing to it.
3. How much storage for emails?
4. What happens if it runs out of space? Bezos said it’ll hold 200 books. What happens after that?
5. Is the reading out loud any good?
6. Lifetime guaranteed internet?
7. Can I buy other Amazon.com things from it?
8. If I lose the device, do I lose my books?
9. Do I have to pay for periodicals on it?
10. Can I put PDFs on it?
11. Gutenberg texts on Kindle?

Why I Switched to OS X

I switched to OS X from Windows in late first quarter 2007. I sold my Dell 17“ single-core (Pentium M) notebook and bought a 15.4” 2.16GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro to replace it. I immediately started using it with Parallels Desktop 3 with XP Pro and XP Home virtual machines for work. My work requires Windows.

Parallels Desktop 3 has run fine for me since then. I’ve had the virtual machines go corrupt about three times but I always had backups. And no problems recently.

I recently jumped to VMware Fusion 2. So far, it’s been fine. I’m hoping it’ll give me better speed due to its dual-processor/core handling. I haven’t noticed a difference yet. But VMware Fusion 2 has been stable for the month or so I’ve been using it.

Now, why did I switch from Windows? The simpler answer is what kept me from switching sooner?

Reasons Not to Switch to OS X

1. I didn’t want to miss my Alt- keyboard shortcuts for menu items. OS X doesn’t do them this way. I got over this quickly once I moved to OS X.
2. I didn’t want to miss my second mouse button. I got used to this quickly.
3. Slightly different keyboard. I adjusted. It took about a week.
4. Directory Opus. Man, I still miss Directory Opus. It is the most wonderful thing about still using Windows. Path Finder, which I purchased immediately upon switching, doesn’t hold a candle to Directory Opus. In fact, I hardly use Path Finder.
5. Beyond Compare 2. I missed Beyond Compare 2 for a long time after switching and knowing there was nothing like it in OS X kept me from switching for a long time. Well, I found DeltaWalker from the gracious folks at Deltopia and my pain is gone.

Reasons to Switch to OS X

1. It’s really UNIX. Yum.
2. Trayless, slot-loading optical drive on their notebooks. Superficial? Maybe. But important to me.
3. Thin notebooks.
4. No damned paint to rub off on the notebooks like on my Dell. (It took me two years to prove this expectation wrong — my MBP paint is rubbing off now. But AppleCare should cover it.)
5. Borderless windows. Or single-pixel borders. Awesome.
6. I was bored of Windows. I wanted a new system to explore and discover.
7. Other reasons will come to me and I’ll add them here as they do.

Ryan Adams, Musician

Browsing through Charlie Rose interview videos on charlierose.com today, I came across this interview with musician, Ryan Adams. I liked him very much. Bought a few of his songs on iTunes while watching the video.

New iPod shuffle

Apple released a redesigned iPod shuffle today. 4GBs for $79. No navigation buttons on the device. Looks pretty attractive.

As I see it, here are the shortfalls compared with previous Shuffle model:

• Can’t use it with a car because the controls are on the headphone wire. Someone will have to come out with a controller that lets you plug another line into it so you can plug it into car stereo line in jacks or cassette adapters.
• Can’t use your own headphones. Requires same solution as previous item.

iPass iPod touch WiFi Hotspot Plan

My youngest brother told me about iPass last week. He was thumbing around the App Store on his iPod touch and found it.

Traveling to the Pena wedding Friday, I signed up that morning. $9.95 per month, month to month plan.

It worked at the Grand Hyatt Tampa Airport hotel, with their non-free T-Mobile hotspot. I used it in the lobby bar to handle a little work email. So far, so good.

Now we’ll see where else it works. I was going to try it at Barnes & Noble last night, but I forgot the iPod touch at home.

Here’s a page where one can search for iPass hotspots: http://ipass.jiwire.com/

Windows Feedback Program pays off again

I received a WFP email today saying fill out this survey and continue sending them data for four months and I’ll get another copy of Office 2007.

Good deal! I filled out the survey. And I assume the invisible client app is still running on my XP machine. I see WFPAsiEve.EXE in my processes list. That’ll do.